Digital Literacy in Post-certification Healthcare Education

Abstract

Digitally mediated contexts are proliferating across all professional disciplines and also transverse social cultures in higher education worldwide. Malta is no exception. Financial pressures, keeping up with international advances, maintaining standards and changing patterns of lifelong learning are driving the education institutions to adopt online modes of communication, interaction and education. As expected, these changes can also be evidenced in the healthcare education sector. This inevitably brings with it a drive towards innovative modalities of interaction, carrying out research and in the pedagogy of teaching and learning. More importantly it necessitates an institutional shift towards prioritising the development of digital literacy among higher education students and academics alike. This does come with challenges – financial and logistical – but significant in the case of post-certification students is the varying degrees of digital literacy competences, combined with a packed curriculum, to be covered in a restrained timeframe, in combination with work and personal commitments. Additionally, a large percentage of these students have gone through their education in the traditional format, and therefore studying in a technology-centric environment presents unique difficulties. The following report presents recommendations envisaged to overcome the challenges around digital literacy in post-certification healthcare professionals. It is to be highlighted that many of the proposals are applicable to the development of digital literacy within the wider higher education community and are not restricted to post-certification healthcare professions alone.